WEE CHO YAW

Wee Cho Yaw was born in 1929 on the island of Kinmen, off the coast of China. His family moved to Singapore when he was young.

Then the Japanese occupation hit during World War II and his schooling fell apart. He never got a university degree.

He started out at Kheng Leong, the family business that traded commodities like rubber and spices. That is where he learned how money actually moves.

His father, Wee Kheng Chiang, had founded a small lender called United Chinese Bank back in 1935. In 1958 Wee Cho Yaw joined its board as its youngest director.

He even spent a few months attached to a British bank in London just to study how a proper bank ran. In 1974 he took over as chairman and chief executive.

The bank, by then renamed United Overseas Bank, had about $2.8 billion in assets. By the time he stepped back from the chairman seat in 2013, it had around $253 billion.

He grew it the old-fashioned way. He bought his rivals.

UOB was the crown jewel, but Wee built a whole web of businesses. He swallowed competing banks one by one.

Chung Khiaw Bank in 1971. Lee Wah Bank in 1973.

Far Eastern Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank after that. Outside banking he chaired UOL Group, a major Singapore property developer.

He controlled Haw Par Corporation, the company behind Tiger Balm, the menthol ointment your grandmother swears by. He also held United Industrial Corporation and Singapore Land, plus the Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Jit Poh.

The pattern was always the same. Buy real things.

Banks, buildings, brands. Hold them for decades.

Wee thought like a banker first and an empire builder second. The two rules were simple.

Lend carefully and grow by buying your competition. When other people panicked, he saw a sale.

In the 1970s Hong Kong and Singapore property wobbled and Wee used the bank's steady cash to keep expanding while others froze. He preferred owning hard assets you could touch.

Banks, land, hotels, a balm brand that has sold for over a century. He was not chasing the next hot thing.

He wanted businesses that would still be standing when his grandchildren ran them. And he wanted his family holding the keys.

The 2001 takeover of Overseas Union Bank. DBS, the government-linked heavyweight, launched a hostile $9.4 billion bid for OUB.

Most people assumed DBS would win because nobody fights the giant and survives. Wee, then 72, decided to fight anyway.

He personally went to see OUB's 95-year-old founder Lien Ying Chow, two old rivals shaking hands, and offered around $10 billion in a friendlier deal. He won.

The acquisition vaulted UOB up the rankings overnight and remains the biggest bank takeover of his career. He proved that an old Chinese-educated banker could out-muscle the establishment on its own turf.

Wee's grip on control was both his strength and the knock against him. During the OUB fight, DBS's adviser circulated documents claiming UOB's bid was designed to keep family control intact without regard for shareholder value.

That criticism never really went away. By holding so tightly to family ownership and running things his way deep into old age, UOB stayed the cautious number two while DBS grew into Southeast Asia's largest bank by assets.

You can argue it was discipline. You can also argue it left money and scale on the table.

Wee would have told you he slept fine either way.

Wee lived by an old Chinese saying. Never forget the source of the water you drink from.

Singapore gave him a platform, so he gave back, mostly to schools and the Chinese community. His business creed boiled down to four words UOB still uses.

Honour, enterprise, unity, commitment. In plain English that means keep your word, work hard, stick together, and finish what you start.

He believed in the long game over the quick win. He believed deep relationships beat clever deals.

And he believed a bank's first job is to not blow itself up.

The Wee story is a dynasty. His father, Wee Kheng Chiang, founded the bank in 1935.

Wee Cho Yaw had five children, and by the time he died they ran the empire. His eldest son Wee Ee Cheong has been UOB's chief executive since 2007.

Another son, Wee Ee Chao, chairs the brokerage UOB Kay Hian. A third son, Wee Ee Lim, runs Haw Par and its Tiger Balm business.

When Wee died on 3 February 2024 at age 95, his estate of roughly $10 billion passed to his wife and five children. He did not just leave money.

He left a working machine.

Wee went to Gong Shang Primary, then The Chinese High School, then Chung Cheng High School in Singapore. He was Chinese-educated to the core, which mattered in an English-dominated business world.

World War II cut his schooling short and he never earned a university degree. That gap stung him for life.

It is exactly why he later spent so much money on education, funding scholarships and Chinese-language causes. NTU and NUS eventually gave him honorary doctorates, so the man who never finished school died as Dr Wee.

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